Heat Pumps

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

It is indeed a good opportunity; I agree with the noble Lord. He will be aware that we recently announced a net-zero building package worth around £3 billion, and the Government are also working closely with industry to ensure that technical education provides new entrants with the skills that will be needed to install these new low-carbon heating systems.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest, as in the register. While installing heat pumps in all newbuild homes makes a lot of sense, 23 million existing homes have gas heating that needs to be replaced as well. Estimates for doing this vary between £5,000 and £10,000 per household; I leave noble Lords to do the maths, but clearly we are talking about astronomic sums of money, even if it is spread out over the years ahead. Is this really the right resource priority in checking the fast rise in global emissions that is about to be resumed, thanks largely to Asian coal burning, when emissions should actually be falling and not rising at all? Should we not now be refocusing our strategic aims and resources more on the real-world climate dangers before us?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My noble friend will be aware that, if we are to meet what is now a legally binding net-zero target, practically all homes—both new and existing buildings—will need to be net zero by 2050. We expect the cost of heat pumps to fall in a mass-market scenario, and the action that we are taking will help to bring down these costs—but the noble Lord highlights an important problem.